


And Earth is Sky, and All is One

by yopumpkinhead



Category: Green Sky Trilogy - Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 22:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8865571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/yopumpkinhead
Summary: Everyone believes Raamo D'ok died when he fell into the Bottomless Lake in order to rid Green-sky of the tool-of-violence. Everyone is wrong. But if Raamo can be found, then so can the tool. What else must Raamo sacrifice in order to ensure his vision of peace comes true?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marie_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/gifts).



> For the prompt, "Fix-it for the ending of the trilogy, which is still devastating on reread decades later. I understand there was a video game from the 80s along these lines, which was written by Snyder and considered by some to be canon. I’ve never seen or played the game, but feel free to incorporate its ideas into a story."
> 
> I haven't played the game either, but was curious enough to go dig up a let's-play on YouTube. The game shows that Raamo's sacrifice didn't magically wipe out the two violent factions described in the trilogy - in fact, they seem to have gotten stronger - and ends with Raamo being found alive down in the uncharted depths of the Erda caves. I wanted to expand on that, and explore both the practical consequences of his fall and what it would mean for him to learn about the Saalites and the disciples of Befal. I also wanted to reconcile the end of the books and Raamo's vision with the end of the game. I hope I succeeded, and that this is a satisfactory fix-it for the trilogy. Happy Yuletide!

Raamo returned to consciousness coughing, choking, and in more pain than he’d imagined existed anywhere in the universe.

He could see nothing but utter blackness, but he could feel water rushing all around him. The current had slammed him chest-first into what his scrabbling hands told him was an outcropping of rock, which must have been enough to jolt his lungs into expelling the water they’d filled with. For a while all he could do was cough, but when the rushing water began to tug at the wing-panels of his shuba, trying to dislodge him, he found the desperate strength to haul himself out of the water and onto the narrow outcropping.

His whole body screamed as he moved, but especially his left thigh. He couldn’t feel anything of his leg except the awful agony.  It would not respond when he tried to move it, dragging dead-weight behind him as he crawled. The left side of his face, too, burned with relentless pain, and as the water dripped away he could feel the thicker ooze of blood along his skin. Other hurts lined his arms, his chest, his back, and he curled on the cold stone of the outcropping, crying breathlessly, helplessly with the pain.

Finally Raamo grew too exhausted to cry, but there was little else he could do, trapped on the wet ledge in the unfathomable depths of the earth. He slept, or thought he did - it was hard to tell the difference between awareness and unconsciousness, except that sometimes when he slept, his Spirit drifted up through the rock pressing down on him to the surface. He glimpsed Erdlings moving through Upper Erda, their faces hollow and bereft of anything like Joy. He watched Kindar drift along the broad branches of the grundtrees above like pale wisps, as though the terrible Wasting disease had swallowed all of Orbora.

He tried calling to them, to tell them not to mourn. The tool-of-violence had been defeated, its evil plunged to the depths of the Bottomless Lake! But he always woke up when he did, jolting back to the agony of his battered, half-drowned body.

Eventually the searing pain faded a little, or perhaps Raamo had simply grown more used to it, because he gradually realized that he was thirsty. Moving hurt, but he managed to roll over enough to reach a hand into the water that flowed fast and cold just beneath the edge of the outcropping. His hand shook too badly to bring much water to his lips, but the few drops he managed revived him enough that he pushed himself to a careful sitting position.

It was still too dark to see, so he used his fingertips to feel out the damage done to his body by the fierce current and sharp rocks of the underground river. His left thigh was horribly swollen and agonizing to even the lightest touch, and he remembered the stories told by his father of a Kindar orchard worker who had tripped on the uneven ground of the orchard floor while carrying a heavy load of pan-fruit, landing badly. The Ol-zhaan who had treated the worker said that the bone inside her leg had broken in two, and it had been weeks before she was able to walk again. Such awful accidents were vanishingly rare in Green-sky, however, and Raamo’s father had not said what the Ol-zhaan had done to heal her.

The rest of his body was covered with bruises and cuts of varying sizes. One long cut ran up the side of his face; it hurt too badly to explore with his hands but he thought it stretched from the left side of his mouth, past his eye, and into his hair. His shuba was in tatters, its wing-panels little more than shredded wisps of silk. He used one of the torn flaps to wipe away the worst of the blood on his face from the big cut, then carefully scooped up water to rinse his skin and then drink.

Next he explored the rocky outcropping on which he sat. It jutted out from a smooth, damp stone wall and hung bare inches over the rushing water below. It was not much wider than Raamo’s shoulders, but it was long, and his hands told him it and the wall both curved away at the very edge of his reach.

All that movement exhausted him, and he lay down again, dozing and Spirit-drifting. This time, his wandering Spirit found Neric and Genaa, huddled together in Neric’s chambers in the Stargrund youth hall. Genaa’s face was lined with tears, and Neric’s eyes were red. Raamo tried to reach out to them with mind-touch, and for a breathless moment he thought he felt Neric’s grief and sorrow. But even as Neric’s head jerked up, his eyes wide with surprise, Raamo’s strength slipped away and he found himself once more in the lightless depths of the earth.

Time passed in a painful, damp haze. Water rushed endlessly past the ledge where Raamo lay, and now and then he roused himself enough to drink. Once, he tried sitting up again, but the cold and the wet had settled into his bones, and moving that much hurt more than it was a relief to not be lying down. Mostly he slept and dreamed and drifted.

Sometimes he saw Neric and Genaa again, but other times he saw his parents as they moved with slow grief through the motions of living. He saw D’ol Falla, silent and sorrowful in her chambers. He watched the people of Green-sky gather one day, and realized with distant shock that they were holding the Celebration of the ReJoyning. There had been a full week before the ceremony when Raamo had fallen, and it was strange to think he’d lain alone down here for so long. It surprised him that he had not yet starved to death, nor died of his injuries. But he also knew that he _would_ die, probably soon.

The thought did not frighten him as much as it should.

Raamo watched as D’ol Falla walked slowly onto the stage to speak. He pensed her grief, her confusion, and her fear that she had no words to offer the people of Green-sky, who mourned all they had once believed in. Raamo wished he could tell her not to grieve, that seeing Kindar and Erdling stand side by side in the celebration hall was itself a great Joy. He reached out to her, straining with mind-touch: _Rejoice,_ he sent. _Tell them to rejoice for what they have achieved here._

When she said, “Let us rejoice,” he pensed her surprise, as well as that of the people gathered in the hall. But then Raamo pensed the slow dawning of understanding, as Erdling and Kindar both realized the truth of her words.

The arrival of the messenger bearing news of the holy children Pomma and Teera was an unexpected additional Joy. When Raamo heard the children were safe, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him. It had been the only thing that he had regretted when he fell - that he hadn’t been able to keep his sister and her friend safe.

After the ceremony, he looked for Neric and Genaa in the hope that he could make sure they, too, were all right before he died. To his surprise, his drifting Spirit did not find them in the youth hall, nor D’ol Falla’s chambers, nor anywhere else he looked. When his strength finally slipped away, he still had not found them.

He slept again, then, but the sleep did not restore him as it should. He knew he was fading, that soon death would take him. He wished that he could have seen his friends one last time, but at least the children were safe. And he remembered the vision he’d had, when he fell, the people of Green-sky banding together in their grief, denying the tool-of-violence’s hold. If the foretelling was true, then dying would not be so bad, for the tool-of-violence had been defeated. And it would remain defeated, as long as Raamo died for it.

“This way,” a voice said suddenly, not far away. “I hear water.”

Raamo blinked, struggling to open his eyes. When he did, he realized he could see the outline of the wall that ran alongside his ledge, could see the edge where it curved away. Dim light flickered and bounced along the walls of the cave, and voices followed:

“Be careful, it’s slippery.”

“Here, take my hand.”

“Look—!”

This last as the light brightened and swung around the corner. Raamo winced away from the brilliance of it, his eyes unable to stand so much light after so long without it. But someone cried, “ _Raamo!_ ” and this time he recognized the voice: Neric.

He squinted his eyes open against the glare. Neric and Genaa stood at the far end of his ledge, just where it curved away. Neric held an Erdling-style lamp that burned with flame behind a delicate metal latticework, and he and Genaa both carried ropes and other Erdling tools for delving the caves.

Genaa stared at him with shock and horror on her face. “Raamo…” she whispered, then knelt at his feet - the narrowness of the ledge preventing her from getting closer - and touched a cautious hand to his leg.

Pain flared through Raamo and he cried out before he could stop himself. Neric put a hand on Genaa’s shoulder. “Gently,” he warned her. “We need to get him back to Orbora, to the healers—”

“No!” Raamo whispered, the rasp of his voice startling him almost as much as it did Neric and Genaa. They stared at him, wide-eyed; he repeated, “No. Not…” A ragged breath around the pain. “Not back. Not to Orbora.”

“Why not?” Neric demanded sharply. “Raamo, you’re injured. You need a Ceremony of Healing, and the people need to see you’re alive—”

“No.” Raamo managed to shake his head, though the movement made him gasp in pain. “I can’t go back. They must not know.”

“You’re not making sense,” Neric said. “The people mourn you, Raamo, they believe you died to get rid of the tool-of-violence—”

“Yes,” Raamo rasped. “And if I am not dead…” He swallowed and tried to explain, but a terrible cough tore through him, leaving him breathless and gasping in agony.

“We’re taking you to the healers,” Neric said firmly, and started to push past Genaa.

But she stopped him. Her eyes were sad, but her face showed understanding. “No, Neric,” she whispered. “He’s right.”

Neric rounded on her. “What?”

“I have heard the whispers of the Saalites and the followers of Befal,” Genaa said. “They do not pursue the tool-of-violence because they believe it to be lost. But Raamo fell with the tool. If Raamo is found…”

Her voice trailed off, but Raamo could see the understanding dawn on Neric’s face. Raamo opened his mouth to speak, to agree with Genaa, to tell them about his vision, but another cough ripped through him, choking the words from his throat and the breath from his chest. He tried to hold on, tried to reach for them, but the pain swallowed him, and he fell away into darkness.

*             *             *

When Raamo awoke, he was wrapped in soft furs, and dim light threw dancing shadows across the low ceiling above him. It was several long seconds before he remembered that Neric and Genaa had come for him, and longer still before he realized that they had not taken him back to Orbora. Instead, he lay in a small Erdling cave-nid, soft silks wrapping his wounds, his broken leg bound tight and raised on a mound of furs.

Through the open mouth of the little cave, he saw a small fire, and Neric and Genaa sitting beside it. They were speaking quietly, though Raamo was too far away to make out the words. Closer to hand, he spotted a jug of water and a small cup on a low table. Reaching for them hurt, but not nearly so much as before, and he managed to pour water and drink it. When he set the cup back down, he noticed a bowl on the table. It was full of Wissenberries.

“Raamo,” Genaa said. She’d seen him moving and come into the little nid-place, ducking under the low ceiling. “How do you feel?”

“I hurt,” Raamo admitted. “And I am very hungry.”

“The hurt is to be expected,” Genaa said, and gestured to the bowl. “We brought you Wissenberries. They should help with both the hurt and the hunger.”

Raamo shook his head. “I don’t like Wissenberries. The way they make you feel…” He trailed off, remembering how thin and translucent Pomma had been, when she’d been Berry-dreaming.

From the expression on Genaa’s face, she remembered, too. But she just said, “We have a little pan-bread here, as well. Here.” She pulled a basket over from the far wall and produced a slice of pan-bread from within it. “We’ll bring down more the next time we return for supplies. But Neric said the Erdling healers said it’s best not to eat too much too quickly, when you’ve been hungry for so long.”

Raamo froze, pan-bread halfway to his mouth. “You told them I am alive?”

“No,” Neric said, coming into the cave behind Genaa. “I do not like it, but you and Genaa are right. We have told no one about you. I learned how the Erdlings treat hunger after the ReJoyning, when I helped care for Erdlings who ate too much too quickly when they arrived above the Root.”

“Then what is this place?” Raamo asked.

“An abandoned miner’s nid-place,” Genaa explained. “We found it when we searched for you. The entrance to the tunnel where we found you is just across the cavern.” She pointed out through the door. “But the Erdlings we spoke to said no one comes down this way anymore. The ore veins are long since used up, and there are closer and safer places to get water.”

“Oh,” Raamo said, and took a careful bite of the pan-bread. Plain as it was, after more than a week without food, it tasted like the richest nut cake, and he savored each mouthful. After he’d finished, though, he found that Neric was right - even that small amount of food made him feel ill.

Genaa and Neric watched him closely as he ate, and Neric handed him another cup of water to wash down the last of the bread. “We must return to the surface soon,” he told Raamo. “If we are to keep your survival a secret, then Genaa and I must act as though we are still searching.”

Raamo nodded reluctantly. He understood, though the thought of being left alone below the Root again twisted his stomach. To delay their departure a little longer, he asked, “How did you find me? How did you even know to search, when everyone else believes me dead?”

They exchanged a look, then Neric said to Raamo, “I thought… After you fell, while we mourned for you… I thought I felt your mind-touch. I thought you called to me.”

“He was insistent,” Genaa added. “I did not believe him - no one did - but…” She trailed off and shrugged.

“I think they thought it did no harm, letting me look,” Neric said. “And I was glad to have something to do.”

“I am glad you insisted,” Raamo said. Smiling hurt the long cut down the side of his face, but he tried anyway. Neric smiled back, then offered his palms to sing the parting. Then Genaa did, and the two of them gathered their bags of delving tools and left, with a promise to return the next day.

Alone in the cave-nid, Raamo watched the flame jump in the lantern they’d left for him. Without the distraction of his friends, his wounds began to protest again. The once-livid bruises had faded to dull yellow and green, and the smaller cuts had scabbed over, but the broken bone in his left thigh throbbed with every beat of his heart. He tried shifting, but that only made it worse, until the pain of it brought tears to his eyes.

He wanted it to stop. He wished desperately that it would stop, but no change in position, no amount of trying to calm his mind, distract himself, or anything else he could think of helped at all.

Finally, reluctantly, he reached for the bowl of Wissenberries.

*             *             *

When Genaa and Neric returned, Raamo floated on Berry-dreams. He woke up enough to smile at them, and to eat a little of the pan-fruit they’d brought. Neric touched a hand to Raamo’s forehead, then brushed away a stray curl of hair. “Rest,” he said gently. “You have been through much. We will come back again tomorrow.”

Raamo nodded. After they left, he ate another handful of berries.

*             *             *

They settled into a routine. Neric and Genaa came nearly every day, bringing fresh pan-bread, Wissenberries, and other food. They spoke to him of the progress of the ReJoyning, of how the members of the Joined Council had grown better at mediating disputes, and how the Celebration of the ReJoyning and the return of the holy children had bolstered the people’s mood, so that they were more willing to work with each other and forgive accidental slights. Raamo listened from where he lay in the fur nid they’d built for him, moving as little as possible to avoid jarring his leg.  

But it was not all Joyful news. Erdling and Kindar still squabbled and clashed, finding seemingly endless minor faults with each other. Worse, D’ol Regle’s assistant D’ol Salaat had picked up the pieces of Regle’s failed rebellion and begun calling themselves Saalites, and the Saalites and the disciples of Axom Befal still whispered about the tool-of-violence. Sometimes those whispers were silenced by mention of the sacrifice of the boy prophet Raamo, but hearing that did not make Raamo feel any better. He knew he was no prophet, no hero - he had only sung a children’s song, and fallen into the dark because he had allowed the tool-of-violence to grip his mind.

To chase away such grim, unJoyful thoughts, Raamo ate Wissenberries. At first only when Neric and Genaa were not there to help distract him, but eventually, even when they were. He discovered that Berry-dreaming was not so unlike the spirit-drifting he’d done while lying wounded in the dark, except that his spirit only walked through dreams instead of the world above. He told himself it was better that way - he had already pensed with D’ol Falla and called Neric to himself by spirit-wandering; he did not wish to encourage anyone else to look for him.

As the days passed, however, Neric and Genaa could make the long trip from the Stargrund  youth hall in Orbora all the way down to Raamo’s cave-nid less often. They both had responsibilities to the Joined Council, and aside from that, almost two months had passed since Raamo’s fall into the Bottomless Lake. Neric and Genaa’s quest to find Raamo had been reasonable, even honorable, during those first weeks - but now that so much time had passed, it had become difficult to keep up the pretense that they still searched. So they began coming down only once every few days, and then only one at a time, except on free days when they could both make the trip.

Left alone, unable to walk and with nothing else to do, Raamo ate more and more Wissenberries, and less and less of the other foods Neric and Genaa brought. His leg still hurt, as did the cut on his face. Lying alone in the dim cavern with only a small lantern for company inclined his mind to unJoyful memories of falling into the water, of crashing through the rocks, of sobbing in pain on his lightless ledge. And the only thoughts to distract him were endless worries of the tensions Neric and Genaa spoke of between Kindar and Erdling, and the evil-touched whispers of the Saalites and the disciples of Befal. The vision that had come to him when he’d fallen into the Bottomless Lake had shown him a world where people renounced the tool-of-violence, where Raamo’s name was a talisman against such evil. But it seemed, listening to Genaa and Neric talk, that perhaps the vision had been no more than the wishful thinking of a dying child. Berry-dreaming helped him keep those unJoyful thoughts away, and dulled the pain of his broken body.

He knew Neric and Genaa worried for him. Sometimes, after they’d come into his nid-cave to replace his supplies, they would stand outside the door and talk in quiet voices. _He looks like his sister once did_ , Neric would say, and Genaa would reply, _he is hurting. Give him time to heal._ Then they would both peer back through the doorway at him, their eyes pale in the glow of the lamp, their faces drawn and worried.

Raamo did not like causing his friends such unJoyful thoughts, and he tried to smile at them when he saw their concern. But he knew, too, that he did not always see it. Sometimes he did not even realize they were there, so lost was he in Berry-dreaming.

_What should we do?_ Genaa would ask. _He is wasting away down here as if we did not rescue him at all._

_I do not know_ , Neric would answer, and they would hold each other, one or both of them reaching out to smooth the hair off Raamo’s forehead.

It occurred to Raamo one day that they were right. They had rescued him from the Bottomless Lake, yet here he was wasting away just like Pomma had, silent and drifting in his nid of furs. Weeks ago on that lightless ledge, he’d thought he would die, and had accepted it. But he found, now that he was safe and warm and once more among his friends, that he did not _want_ to die. Yet he knew that if he kept on as he was, eating Berries and little else, lying drifting and dreaming, he _would_ die.

He could not let that happen.

*             *             *

When next Raamo reached for a handful of Wissenberries, he stopped himself. His hand shook beside his leg, but he sang the Answer Song to himself over and over, his voice little more than a whisper in the dim, flickering lamplight. Eventually even that was not enough to distract him, so he decided to get out of his nid and move around.

Doing so turned out to be difficult. His broken leg still hurt when he moved it, and he was weak and frail from so much time spent Berry-dreaming and wounded. Raamo pushed himself up to sitting, then dragged himself up onto his good leg, using the small table for support. From there, gasping with pain when he put weight on his bad leg, he managed to hobble the few steps to the entrance of the cave-nid. He had no time to look around the outer cavern, however, as his leg gave out and so did his strength. He slid to the cold rocky ground, and had to crawl back to his nid of furs, where he collapsed into an exhausted sleep.

Raamo awoke some hours later, the lantern burning low, and found himself reaching for a handful of Wissenberries without consciously meaning to. He took a slice of pan-bread instead, and a sip of water. This time, when he got out of bed, he managed to stand in the door of the cave-nid for a few minutes and look around.

The little nid-place sat at the edge of a larger cavern whose ceiling arched up overhead, dripping with stalactites. Chips and cracks in the walls, and mounds of rock and rubble below them, showed where Erdling miners had once worked to extract metals from the earth. A pile of abandoned tools sat forgotten along one wall of the nid-place. Across the cavern, just as Genaa had said, Raamo saw the dark hole that must be the entrance to the passage that led to the place where he’d been found.

He returned to his fur-nid unable to get the image of that gaping slash in the wall out of his mind, nor Genaa’s words: _Raamo fell with the tool. If Raamo is found…_

Raamo had been found, and the path to the river lay open. Genaa and Neric talked about the Saalites, the disciples of Befal, and others who still thought about the tool-of-violence. Raamo’s own name served as a talisman against the tool, at least for now, but he did not know how long it would last. And if his vision had been wrong...

The next time he got out of bed, he pulled on the torn remnants of his shuba and limped all the way to the pile of abandoned miners’ tools. Many of them were too old or damaged to use, but a long metal pole was still sturdy enough to serve as a walking stick.

The day after that, Raamo hobbled across the cavern to the hole in the wall, leaning heavily on the stick and biting his lip at the pain in his leg. One of the piles of leftover mining rubble was not very far away, and with effort, Raamo dragged one of the rocks over from the pile and placed it in the corner of the hole. It was nowhere near big enough to block it, or even hinder someone stepping through. But it was a start.  

*             *             *

Filling in the hole in the wall took Raamo three months. At first, he was only strong enough to limp across the cavern, move a few small rocks, and then drag himself back to his nid before collapsing in exhaustion. The pain in his leg was often severe enough that his hand would stray toward the bowl of Wissenberries that still sat beside his nid, so he moved the bowl outside, where it would not tempt him. The next time Genaa came to visit, the bowl disappeared, though she did not say anything about it to him.

At first, Raamo used rocks from the piles of rubble around the cavern, first carrying them one by one in his free hand while leaning heavily on his walking stick, then piling them into a bucket he’d found in the pile of tools and hauling that across the cavern. But he’d only filled the opening halfway when he ran out of rubble to use. So he dug through the pile of tools again until he found a pick that was still in good enough shape, and began to mine his own rocks.

Neric and Genaa still came to visit whenever they could sneak away, and now that Raamo was not Berry-dreaming, he found himself enjoying their visits. They would speak to him of the daily problems of the Joined Council and of the People’s Senate hearings, and he would offer what advice he could. Sometimes they wanted to share with him some small victory of the ReJoyning effort, and he celebrated with them.

Other times, however, they spoke of darker matters. The followers of Axom Befal still roamed the surface of the forest, most armed with sharp wands-of-Befal. The Joined Council did not know how to approach them, or to convince them to lay down their wands and renounce the violence they sought. And the Saalites still spent their days scheming of ways to regain the power of the tool-of-violence and restore the Geets-kel’s reign over Green-sky.

Hearing of these rebellions concerned Raamo. He feared, often, that his vision of a peaceful Green-sky after his sacrifice was nothing more than wishful thinking. It made him all the more determined not to leave his cavern until the hole leading to the underground river was sealed. He could not have Peace while the path to the tool-of-violence’s final resting place lay open.

So he labored, mining rocks from the walls, hauling them to the gap, and fitting them together. Neric and Genaa noticed, of course, and nodded in understanding when he explained what he was doing. They agreed that leaving the path open was dangerous, even if no one but the three of them knew Raamo still lived. They helped him when they visited, though they did not have the strength of arm that Raamo had developed from carving and hauling stone. Mostly, though, it was Raamo who worked.

*             *             *

Finally the day came when Raamo stretched up on his toes to shove the last stone in place at the top of the gap in the wall. As he jammed it in, he felt as though a great weight lifted from his shoulders. When he settled back to the floor, leaning on his walking stick, he felt lighter than he had since that day nearly half a year ago, when he’d picked up the urn holding the tool-of-violence. The way was blocked, and no one who thought to search for the tool, as Neric and Genaa had once searched for Raamo, would be able to reach it.

With his walking stick to support him, Raamo limped back across the cavern to his cave-nid and sat on the low bench outside the door, beside the low fire. His bad leg stretched before him, crooked and painful. Neric had done what he could, but Raamo had lain alone in the dark for too long, and despite Neric’s assurances, Raamo did not think his leg would ever fully heal. But the pain was familiar by now, and with the walking stick to lean on, he could get around on his own.

It was a free day in Orbora high overhead, and Raamo sang the Answer Song softly to himself while waiting for Neric and Genaa to make the long journey down. They knew he had been close to achieving his goal, and Neric had promised to bring him a new shuba to replace the one that had been destroyed by the underground river and months of hard labor. He heard them before he saw them, their voices mingled in laughter and Joy echoing through the tunnels. When they arrived in the cavern, they were smiling and holding hands, and Raamo felt Joy in his heart to see them so.

“You finished!” Genaa exclaimed, looking at the barricade of tightly packed stone where the gap had once been.

“Yes,” Raamo agreed. He stood to touch palms and sing the greeting with them, taking Joy in their delighted smiles.

Despite that, he did not allow himself to smile back. Like his leg, the deep cut along his face had finally healed, but badly. He caught glimpses of the scar sometimes when washing his face in the bathing bowl. It ran from the left corner of his mouth, over his cheekbone, beneath his eye, and up into the hair at his temple, twisting and pulling the skin in its wake. His left eye sagged strangely, and his upper lip seemed to always be curled in a shamefully unJoyful sneer. Trying to smile, or make any expression really, only twisted his face more. Neric and Genaa did not like to look upon it. Though they tried not to let him know, he could pense their unease when they looked at him. So he avoided smiling, and let his curly hair grow long enough to fall over his face and hide the scar.

When they had finished the greeting, Genaa pulled him into an embrace before letting go and nudging him toward Neric. “See what we have brought you,” she said excitedly.

Neric held out a wrapped bundle, which Raamo took and opened to reveal a brand new shuba of soft green silk with delicate traces of embroidery along the arms and legs. “It’s beautiful,” Raamo said, embracing first Neric, then Genaa. “Thank you both.”

“Try it on,” Neric urged, nudging him toward the cave-nid. Raamo went inside and changed, finding to his surprise that the shuba fit tightly across his chest and arms as on the strongest Erdling miners or Kindar orchard workers. When he came back out, Genaa clapped her hands in delight, and Neric smiled broadly.

“You look good, Raamo,” Neric said.

“Different,” Genaa agreed, “but good.”

“Different?” Raamo asked, amused.

“Yes,” Neric said. “You used to look frail and young, too young for all that was asked of you. Now you look…”

He paused, thinking, and Genaa finished for him: “You look like a grown man, Raamo.”

Raamo thought about it, looking at his arms stretched out in front of him, the drape of the wing-panels. “I suppose I am one now,” he said. “And I am glad I look different. It’s time for me to return to the surface.”

“How?” Neric asked in surprise. “You said yourself that the people of Green-sky must not know you are alive. If you return…”

“I will not return as Raamo,” he said quietly.

They both stared at him. “You would tell an untruth?” Genaa asked, shocked. “For the rest of your life?”

“I do not like it,” Raamo admitted, “but I have given it much thought, and I see no other way. Raamo D’ok must have fallen with the tool-of-violence for peace to remain in Green-sky. But I cannot stay in this cavern forever, locked away from other people, dependent upon you two for necessities. I must go back.”

There was another reason, too, that he did not say aloud for fear of sounding childish. His vision, of a Green-sky united against violence, still whispered in his memory, and he harbored a secret hope that if he returned to the surface, perhaps he could do more to make it come true.

“How will you explain your injuries?” Neric asked.

“I will say I was helping some Erdlings move out of the caverns during the ReJoyning,” Raamo said. “A terrible accident happened and I was injured by falling rocks.”

Genaa nodded thoughtfully. “I think it could work,” she said. “But not in Orbora, where you are well known. You look different, but not _that_ much different.”

“Yes,” Neric agreed. “I do not wish to send you away, but you will have a better chance of keeping your secret in Farvald, where few knew the Raamo that was.”

Raamo agreed, and so it was decided: he would travel to Farvald, where he would take up residence in the youth hall there under a new name. They spent the rest of the afternoon making plans, and when Neric and Genaa had to leave to return to the Stargrund youth hall to sleep, they did so with a promise to return for him on the next free day, to begin his long journey to Farvald.

*             *             *

“Ranon! Over here!” Oren called, and gestured to a spot beside him in the shade of a tall orchard tree.

The young man who was called Ranon D’shom limped over, leaning heavily on his walking stick, his scarred face flushed with exertion behind the fall of curly pale hair. He sank down gratefully beside Oren, and the older harvester handed him a cup of water from a container nearby.

“Thank you,” Ranon said. He had a soft voice to go with his soft manner, and though he never smiled - Oren was not sure he could, with such a dreadful scar on his face - his eyes showed his Joy in the simple pleasure of a midday meal in the orchards below Farvald.

Several months had passed since Ranon had come to Farvald to make a home for himself and Oren had met him on their shared harvesting assignment. Ranon spoke little of his past or the terrible accident that had left him scarred and limping - indeed, spoke little at all. Oren had at first thought him a Berry-dreamer, sent to Farvald by well-meaning relatives to live out his life in peace. But while he spoke softly and rarely, he had a solid, strong body well-suited to the hard labor of the orchard, and was mindful and attentive of his responsibilities.

Now he shared his simple meal of mushrooms and paam-fruit with Oren, his eyes lighting up with delight when Oren offered him a nut cake prepared by Oren’s wife. Oren smiled to see his Joy, and said, “If you like it, you should join my family for Celebration Week. We have more than enough to share, and it would bring my wife great Joy to meet you.”

Ranon blinked at him. “Celebration Week?” he asked.

“Have you not heard?” Oren asked, surprised. “I would have thought the youth hall would be abuzz with the news.”

“I do not…” Ranon shook his head. “The youth hall is abuzz, but there are few who speak to me.” He glanced up quickly at Oren and hastened to add, “It is not that they willfully exclude me. It is only that most of them have known each other since their youngest days in the Gardens, and I am new and unknown.”

“All the more reason for you to join us for Celebration Week, then,” Oren said, and patted the young man’s shoulder. He suspected Ranon’s words were not wholly true - even Oren had needed some time to overcome his instinctive fear and revulsion at seeing Ranon’s twisted, scarred face. But it was kind of Ranon to say otherwise, to be so willing to believe that nothing but goodness lay in the hearts of others.

“I knew the Celebration of the ReJoyning was coming up soon,” Ranon admitted, “but I did not know the Joined Council had made it a week-long ceremony.”

“It is not only the ReJoyning,” Oren said. “The Joined Council has declared a day of remembrance and celebration for the Sacrifice of the Great Prophet Raamo D’ok to rid Green-sky of the tool-of-violence, and—”

He would have gone on, but Ranon had flinched at the mention of the Prophet, and now ducked his head to hide an unJoyful frown that tugged badly at the scar on his face. “Ranon?” Oren said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Ranon said, and then sighed. “Only, I was there, the day Raamo fell.” He shook his head, his pale curls falling around his face, his gaze turning distant. “What he did… It was necessary to protect Kindar and Erdling alike from the tool, but it is nothing to be celebrated.”

“No?” Oren asked. This was something Ranon had never spoken of before, and Oren could not help but wonder if witnessing such an important and tragic event was what had made him so quiet and withdrawn. “Raamo saved all Green-sky. Is that not worthy of celebration?”

“Raamo was no great prophet, nor a savior,” Ranon said, his voice tired. “Just a boy who sang a children’s song and fell into the dark. I fear the evil of the tool-of-violence will never release its grip on Green-sky.”

“Just a boy,” Oren echoed. He pointed across the orchard to a pair of Erdling men who sat in the shade of a pan-fruit tree, laughing at some shared joke with a group of Kindar. “Do you know Arval and Loc?”

Ranon shook his head. Oren continued, “They were once followers of Axom Befal, and believed that all Kindar should suffer for imprisoning the Erdlings. They carried wands-of-Befal and laid plans to bring great harm to the Kindar around them. But then Raamo carried the tool-of-violence to the Bottomless Lake, and they realized that they had been touched by a great evil. It was Raamo’s sacrifice that made them renounce Befal and his wands, and become orchard workers to provide for Kindar and Erdling alike.”

He pointed again, this time at an older Kindar woman dozing with her broad sun-hat tipped forward. “That is Reica D’Ent, once D’ol Reica, a Vine Priest assigned to Farvald.” Ranon nodded, apparently familiar with her. Oren continued, “She followed D’ol Regle when he left Orbora after the ReJoyning, and believed his counsel that the tool-of-violence should be used to keep peace in Green-sky. When Raamo fell, she saw that it was he who embodied the true wisdom of our ancestors, not Regle. She left the Saalites and returned here to Farvald, where she now uses her knowledge of the paths below the grunds to help Erdling families build their homes.”

Oren watched Ranon as he spoke. The young man’s face was solemn and thoughtful. Looking into his eyes, Oren felt as though he glimpsed a much deeper wisdom, as if Ranon himself held the secrets of the Great Prophet. _Perhaps_ , Oren mused, _being so near the Prophet when he fell has given Ranon a Spirit-gift that few could ever know or understand._

“I see,” Ranon said quietly. He turned his solemn gaze back to Reica D’Ent, then to Arval and Loc. “I see,” he said again, and nodded once to himself, as if confirming something. When he looked back to Oren, his eyes were bright and full of Joy. “Thank you, Oren, for telling me this. Perhaps you are right that Raamo’s sacrifice is worth celebrating, after all.”

Oren smiled. In the distance, the harvest leader’s horn sounded, marking the end of the meal break and summoning the harvesters back to their work. Oren pushed himself to his feet, then offered his hand to Ranon. He clasped it and let Oren pull him upright, and they made their way together back out into the sunlight of the orchard.

*             *             *

The young man who had once been called Raamo D’ok smiled to himself as he limped beside his friend. He had lost much when he fell into the darkness deep below the Root, but knowing that his fall had helped - knowing that his vision had been true, that his name protected Green-sky from the evils of violence - made his heart leap with Joy.

Still smiling despite the scar on his face, Ranon D’shom reached up and plucked a pan-fruit from a branch to deposit in his basket. One of the other orchard workers began to sing, her voice cheerful and childlike:

_What is the answer?_  
_When will it come?_  
_When the day is danced and sung,_  
_And night is sweet and softly swung,_  
_And all between becomes among,_  
_And they are we and old is young,_  
_And earth is sky,_  
_And all is one._  
_Then will the answer come,_  
_Then will it come to be,_  
_Then it will be._

Ranon joined his voice to hers, and so did the other harvesters, and soon the whole grove rang with song, Kindar and Erdling alike sharing the Joy of working together for the good of Green-sky.


End file.
